Austerity Bites

This is the birdtable I see when I look out the kitchen window. The wife got it way back to give the birds a place to dine safe from marauding cats and other wildlife. When I see all the birdseed gone, it reminds me to go and put out some more. Pigeons, robins, tits and the like all vie with each other for space there. And even the pigeons, the biggest of the birds to come to dinner, often end up fighting among themselves and pushing one another out into the air.

So I'm inclined to keep an eye on it, both for entertainment and to attend to my duties as Maître d'.

When I looked out this morning I saw what looked like a lump of poo (above) that would do a large rabbit credit. What, in God's name, I wondered, had been in and left its calling card? So out I went to investigate.



It turned out, however, that the intruder was still there and doing his best to consume the avian vittles. Clearly austerity was biting so hard that it was even affecting the slugs on the ground. This guy had climbed all the way up the Empire State building for a bite of breakfast.

First time I'd ever seen the like.

Not a very merry bellwether, methinks.